OPINION: When responsibility for media content is evaded, the truth suffers

Given the role that hugely profitable social media giants play in the spread of misinformation, University of Limerick Journalism lecturer Dr Fergal Quinn asked in the Irish Independent and Cork Independent whether they should be made more liable for it.

The world we live in now seems a darker, more pessimistic place. Rather than the shared, euphoric enlightenment we hoped for, we see a public sphere corrupted by wilful ignorance, in which demonstrable, evidence-based facts are given no more credence than misleading or speculative untruths.

The mistake was to believe that the free flow information would usher in transparency and common understanding without considering how that flow could also be subverted and used for other purposes.

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